REAL PEOPLE, REAL ISSUES

August 09, 2008

Is Obama the End of Black Politics?

Forty-seven years after he last looked out from behind the bars of a
South Carolina jail cell, locked away for leading a march against segregation
in Columbia, James Clyburn occupies a coveted suite of offices on the second
and third floors of the United States Capitol, alongside the speaker and the
House majority leader. Above his couch hangs a black-and-white photograph of
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking in Charleston,
with the boyish Clyburn and a group of other men standing behind him onstage.
When I visited Clyburn recently, he told me that the photo was taken in 1967,
nine months before King’s assassination, when rumors of violence were
swirling, and somewhere on the side of the room a photographer’s floodlight
had just come crashing down unexpectedly. At the moment the photo was taken,
everyone pictured has reflexively jerked their heads in the direction of the
sound, with the notable exception of King himself, who remains in profile, staring
straight ahead at his audience. Clyburn prizes that photo. It tells the story,
he says, of a man who knew his fate but who, quite literally, refused to flinch. On the day in early July when Clyburn and I talked, Barack Obama,
who is the same age as one of Clyburn’s three daughters, had recently
clinched his party’s nomination for president. Clyburn, who as majority
whip is the highest-ranking black elected official in Washington, told
me that on the night of the final primaries he left the National
Democratic Club down the street about 15 minutes before Obama was
scheduled to speak and returned home to watch by himself. He feared he
might lose hold of his emotions.“Here we are, all of a sudden, in the 60th year after Strom Thurmond bolting the Democratic Party
over a simple thing, something almost unheard of — because he did not
want the armed forces to be integrated,” Clyburn said slowly. “Here we
are 45 years after the ‘I have a dream’ speech. Forty years after the
assassinations of Kennedy and King. And this party that I have been a
part of for so long, this party that has been accused of taking black
people for granted, is about to deliver the nomination for the nation’s
highest office to an African-American. How do you describe that? All
those days in jail cells, wondering if anything you were doing was even
going to have an impact.” He shook his head silently. SOURCE:NYT.COM

Comments

Is Obama the End of Black Politics?

Forty-seven years after he last looked out from behind the bars of a
South Carolina jail cell, locked away for leading a march against segregation
in Columbia, James Clyburn occupies a coveted suite of offices on the second
and third floors of the United States Capitol, alongside the speaker and the
House majority leader. Above his couch hangs a black-and-white photograph of
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking in Charleston,
with the boyish Clyburn and a group of other men standing behind him onstage.
When I visited Clyburn recently, he told me that the photo was taken in 1967,
nine months before King’s assassination, when rumors of violence were
swirling, and somewhere on the side of the room a photographer’s floodlight
had just come crashing down unexpectedly. At the moment the photo was taken,
everyone pictured has reflexively jerked their heads in the direction of the
sound, with the notable exception of King himself, who remains in profile, staring
straight ahead at his audience. Clyburn prizes that photo. It tells the story,
he says, of a man who knew his fate but who, quite literally, refused to flinch. On the day in early July when Clyburn and I talked, Barack Obama,
who is the same age as one of Clyburn’s three daughters, had recently
clinched his party’s nomination for president. Clyburn, who as majority
whip is the highest-ranking black elected official in Washington, told
me that on the night of the final primaries he left the National
Democratic Club down the street about 15 minutes before Obama was
scheduled to speak and returned home to watch by himself. He feared he
might lose hold of his emotions.“Here we are, all of a sudden, in the 60th year after Strom Thurmond bolting the Democratic Party
over a simple thing, something almost unheard of — because he did not
want the armed forces to be integrated,” Clyburn said slowly. “Here we
are 45 years after the ‘I have a dream’ speech. Forty years after the
assassinations of Kennedy and King. And this party that I have been a
part of for so long, this party that has been accused of taking black
people for granted, is about to deliver the nomination for the nation’s
highest office to an African-American. How do you describe that? All
those days in jail cells, wondering if anything you were doing was even
going to have an impact.” He shook his head silently. SOURCE:NYT.COM

September 2012

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